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Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Book Review: Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Malone Scott

I don't normally read business books, but over the last few years, I've tried to read about one a year, just so that if I ever get into management, I have some knowledge of what I'm getting into, and also because my years of fanatical reading of AskAManager have given me new insight into the working world from other angles, and has made it much more intriguing to me.

This book has an interesting idea and mostly divides up our interactions into 4 types, one really bad, two mildly bad, and one good. Most of us are familiar sadly with bosses who are too mean and not at all empathetic, but bosses can also be too nice and way too empathetic (they tend not to ever fire anyone no matter how bad at their jobs.) It's not at all good to be yelled at daily but it's also not good to never get any negative feedback that you could work on.

Personally, I feel the subtitle of this book does it a great disservice, because it's not at all just about managing. The last third of the book is, but the majority is about our interactions with others, and I could think of times when I exhibited these tendencies and created these negative interactions with my spouse, and with family. Not only do you not have to be a boss to get benefit from this book, but it also doesn't only have to apply to the workplace. But basically her message is to kindly tell t he truth. Trying to not hurt someone's feelings, or fix things yourself, or saying you're too busy to correct a staff member or colleague, is just as damaging i the long run as is yelling, slamming doors, giving contradictory instructions, having unrealistic expectations, and a load of other obvious behaviors that lead to negative work environments and relationships. Ms. Scott writes without using much business-speak, she is very open about her own failures as a manager (and what she's learned from them and how she should have done things differently), and it's an easy read. Personally, as a non-manager, the last third didn't do much for me, but that's not a big problem overall. I think her message is really important.

I got this book for free from the publisher at Winter Institute. I now work for the publisher although I didn't at the time.